jjacquet | May 14, 2008After doing podcasts with Genie Scott, PZ Myers, and Richard Dawkins regarding the movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," Skepticality decided to bring back Randy Olson (they did a first podcast with him last October) to let him have the last word on the debut of "Expelled." In his discussion he goes through six ways in which he feels the evolution crowd played into the hands of the producers of "Expelled," and unintentionally helped them promote the movie.
You can hear it here.
For being interviewed in the movie, Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer wins a souvenir "Expelled"…
jjacquet | May 13, 2008Over the weekend, the Observer's Alex Renton gave it to us straight on how the world's oceans are running out of fish. Here's just a taste:
Unlike global warming, the science of fish stock collapse is old and its practitioners have been pretty much in agreement since the 1950s. Yet Roberts can think of only one international agreement that has actually worked and preserved stocks of an exploited marine animal - a deal in the Arctic in 1911 to regulate the hunting of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands. So why has the international community failed so badly in its attempts to stop the long-…
jjacquet | May 12, 2008On any given day, the world's fleet of ships are carrying billions of tons of ballast water with up to 7,000 different invasive species as stowaways. About one in every ten of these is likely to be a problem if it's introduced into a new ecosystem, which is why the United Nations has listed "invasive species" discharged from ballast water as one of the top four threats to marine ecosystems globally. In the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, a new species has been recorded every four weeks. More than 400 introduced species now make their home in a Sea that has (or had) one of the highest…
jjacquet | May 9, 2008Check it out! A researcher at the New England Aquarium was the first human known to witness a right whale birth. Read all about her experience and some of the conservation efforts to save this endangered species here.
jjacquet | May 9, 2008Fishermen off of Oregon's coast could go broke sitting, or could go broke working, which is why they're trading in their salmon fishing gear and began outfitting their boats for prawns. This is a classic case of overfishing (as well as other factors that play into the salmon shortage, such as climate change and habitat degradation) and fishing down marine food webs--and the Oregon fleet is trying to diversify under the new regime. Read more on the conversion of a fishing fleet and hard times at the New York Times.
Steve Wilson refits his salmon boat to fish for prawns destined (hopefully)…
jjacquet | May 7, 2008We know fishmeal has problems. After posting an article back in January on the potential for bugmeal to replace fishmeal in farmed fish production, several readers asked some hard questions and wanted more information. I like readers to get what they want, so I spoke with Dr. Lou D'Abramo, who has a doctorate from Yale University and has been working to create more sustainable aquaculture systems for freshwater prawns. He is also the lead scientist studying how striped bass are responding to insect meal at Mississippi State University and got encouraging results. I pointed Dr. D'Abramo…
jjacquet | May 5, 2008That's all there is to it. Check out the 60 Minutes profile on him that aired last night:
jjacquet | May 5, 2008If the seal and penguin weren't enough, there is another sexually curious story from the aquatic environment. According to a colleague, this story out of Japan details a male frog's obsession with a female char, seen swimming together for over a week. Unfortunately, they were found dead last week in each other's arms (and fins).
jjacquet | May 3, 2008What a rogue. An Antarctic fur seal was caught in the act trying to have sex with a king penguin. The incident wasn't too unlike a Paris Hilton escapade--the act lasted for 45 minutes, was caught on camera, and then sleazy still photos were strewn about by the press (but rather than US Weekly it was the Journal of Ethology and BBC News). It's not clear the attempt was successful but at least the penguin survived. Marine life these days... Read more on sexual coercion in animals here.
jjacquet | May 2, 2008Where would shifting baselines be without Daniel Pauly? It'd be something altogether different, since he is the one who coined the term back in 1995. Today he turned 62 and we here at the Fisheries Centre celebrated. And yes, Rick, you can drink to that!
jjacquet | May 1, 2008For a baseline to shift, there must be an element of amnesia. To be forgotten, you must first be acknowledged as existing. What of the unlucky mollusks then? Few people know much about these slimy, slow movers. A new article discusses the vertebrate bias in conservation and the grim future for mollusks, particularly terrestrial species.
The decline and loss of mammals, birds, and other vertebrate species is well documented and often brought to public attention as a consequence of recent human impact on environment. It is indeed alarming to realize that we have lost 135 bird species, 70…
jjacquet | April 30, 2008There is evidence of hominids collecting seafood for at least 164,000 years. And then there is evidence (fishing spears found during a dig in the Congo) to suggest that humans began fishing at least 90,000 years ago. This week, there is new evidence to suggest orangutans are joining us in this occupation. Read the full article here.
jjacquet | April 28, 2008Greenpeace isn't only busy busting up the Brussels Seafood Expo. They also explore the world's deepest underwater canyons in search of new life. And they found some!
The newly discovered sponge from Alaska's Pribilof Canyon will be named Aaptos kanuux. This discovery will assist in Greenpeace's campaign to protect the Bering Sea, one of the richest marine ecosystems on earth.
"We named this sponge 'kanuux,' after the Unungan word for "heart," explained George Pletnikoff, Greenpeace Alaska Oceans Campaigner and a native of the Unungan communities on the Pribilof Islands. "These canyons…
rolson | April 27, 2008How bad is the situation with plastics in the ocean? Bad enough that the staff of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation are building "Junkraft," a raft made of 20,000 discarded plastic bottles for sailing the 2100 miles from California to Hawaii to call attention to it. I stopped by to check out the construction this morning on the front lawn of the Long Beach Aquarium. Good friend and long time Shifting Baselines supporter Anna Cummins is working with her boyfriend Dr. Marcus Eriksen, Joel Paschal and a group of volunteers, stuffing mesh bags full of the plastic bottles. Patagonia…
jjacquet | April 27, 2008For those of you wondering what happened to the terrestrial and re-wilding side of Shifting Baselines, Josh Donlan is off trekking in Nepal until the end of May when he will rejoin with new insights and hopefully no frostbitten fingertips.
jjacquet | April 25, 2008Check out this 4-minute clip of Dr. Rashid Sumaila, head of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit here at the UBC Fisheries Centre (and also one of my committee members), as he discusses overfishing, subsidies, and what we can do about it. The clip is an out-take from the PBS series Strange Days on Planet Earth and Rashid also gave a nice interview for the Strange Days website. He forgot to mention his motto: Just keep pushing. (Also note that Rashid has been invited to TED Talks in Africa this fall so this won't be the last clip from him!)
jjacquet | April 24, 2008I used to love scratch-n-sniff when I was little. I remember one about a little bear at Christmas and I could smell his hot chocolate, oranges, and pine trees. Well, that was then and this is now. My book about the little bear was really delightful. This new scratch-n-sniff book will not be really delightful. But it will be real and should be manufactured in bulk and distributed freely to all children that they may get an olfactory sense of what the future holds. In "The Future Stinks" children can scatch and sniff smells of garbage, factory farms, sewage effluent, factory farms, and…
jjacquet | April 23, 2008We didn't have time to review the film "Expelled" here at Shifting Baselines but here are a handful of reviews by a handful of interesting characters:
Is I.D. Ready for Its Close-up? by Peter Manseau, Editor of Science & Spirit
Hearts and Minds by Chris Mooney, science writer and Intersection blogger
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Ben Stein Launches a Science-free Attack on Darwin by Michael Shermer, Skeptic Society and Scientific American contributor
Resentment Over Darwin Evolves into a Documentary by Jeanette Catsoulis for The New York Times
And finally, from Fox News, a review of…
jjacquet | April 23, 2008There are some great campaigns around the world right now. For instance, just this morning at the Brussels Seafood Expo, 80 Greenpeace activists from 15 countries covered the stands with fishing nets, chained themselves to the stands and put up banners in 13 languages saying 'Time and Tuna are running out' and closed down several seafood trading stands. According to Greenpeace:
The Brussels Seafood Expo is the world's largest seafood trading event. If you want to see the world's remaining fish stocks literally served up on a plate, this is the place to come. 1,600 companies from 80…
jjacquet | April 22, 2008Is it just me or was Earth Day nothing special? Judging from this article, Earth Day Goes Political and Corporate, I'm right (unless you think planting an elm tree is going green). Maybe it's precisely beacuse Earth Day went political and corporate it no longer means anything...or maybe every day is Earth Day.